At UConn, Dan Hurley and Geno Auriemma share a bond over life at the top of college basketball

In December 2005, Auriemma had already established himself as one of the greatest women’s college basketball coaches of all time: the winner of five national championships to that point, including three straight from 2002 to 2004. Hurley, on the other hand, had

Dan Hurley still remembers the day vividly. Geno Auriemma remembers the broad strokes. Which, frankly, is fitting, given the coaches’ respective roles over two decades ago, when the present pillars of UConn basketball first crossed paths.

In December 2005, Auriemma had already established himself as one of the greatest women’s college basketball coaches of all time: the winner of five national championships to that point, including three straight from 2002 to 2004. Hurley, on the other hand, had barely begun his coaching career, and was only a few years in at St. Benedict’s Prep in New Jersey, which he eventually turned into one of America’s best high school programs.

Auriemma’s son, Mike, was playing for the Hun School at the time, and Auriemma attended the game not as the coach who’d ultimately go on to become the winningest in college basketball — but just as a dad in the stands. Even if that’s not how Hurley saw him. “I remember being very insecure and self-conscious about what he was going to think of the practice that I was running, as a pretty inexperienced high school coach,” Hurley said.